Sam Grabiner ’21 wins 2025 Olivier Award for ‘Boys on the Verge of Tears’
Update:
Sam Grabiner ’21 won the 2025 Olivier Award for Best New Production in an Affiliate Theatre for his play Boys on the Verge of Tears. The highest award in British theatre comes after his 2024 win for best debut at the Stage Awards.
“Now, as we all know, the theatre isn’t just about big West End venues. There is really great work going on all over the country, with brilliant productions both big and small proving that the U.K. is an exciting, bubbling cauldron of red hot talent,” presenter Idris Elba said at the 2025 Olivier Awards Ceremony.
“I just want to say for emerging artists out there," said Grabiner in his acceptance speech, "it can feel very difficult at the moment, but I have a feeling that really exciting, confronting and complex work is about to be made in the theatre, and I suspect emerging playwrights and new writing will be a big part of that. So if you can support new playwrights, support emerging theatre artists.
“I’m going to take this incredible award as a challenge to keep trying to make work that feels intimate and true,” Grabiner continued.
Grabiner beat out the other nominees—including acclaimed writers and playwrights Nathan Englander and Sanaz Toossi—to win his first Olivier Award.
The play’s director, James Macdonald, knew he wanted to work with the play ten pages into reading the script. “It’s about something that matters that hasn’t been spoken about in the way this play chooses to speak about it,” he told AnOther Magazine. “I love plays [like this] in which actors get to transform and there’s a total democracy in what the team is being asked to do.”
See a full list of this year's Olivier Award winners here.
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Original: March 21, 2025
Playwriting alum Sam Grabiner ’21 and Professor Lynn Nottage have been honored with nominations for Olivier Awards, considered the highest honor for British theatre and often compared to the Tony Awards in the United States. Winners will be announced at Royal Albert Hall on April 6, 2025.
Grabiner earned the nomination for Best New Production in Affiliate Theatre with his debut, Boys on the Verge of Tears. Nottage’s jukebox musical, MJ The Musical, was nominated for three Olivier Awards, including Best New Musical.
Boys on the Verge of Tears is set in a public toilet in London and follows a cast of boys as they develop throughout their lives. Audiences bear witness to the pressures masculinity exerts on boys as they grow into men. The play was produced and staged by the Soho Theatre in London, after Grabiner won their Verity Bargate Award in 2022.
MJ The Musical’s initial run on Broadway garnered 10 Tony nominations, including Best Book of a Musical, and won two Tony Awards. The musical follows Michael Jackson as he prepares for his 1990 Dangerous World Tour, incorporating major hits from across his discography. It is one of the highest-grossing musicals of all time.
According to a statement from the Olivier Awards, "The competition for nominations has been intense in what has proven to be a transformative year for London theatre, marked by a rich blend of dynamic new works, innovative interpretations of classics, and a commitment to championing diverse voices and stories. A stunning array of stars have trod the boards, and nominees in the craft awards have showcased extraordinary innovation and artistry."
Sam Grabiner is the Writer-in-Residence at The National Theatre Studio in London. Last year, Manhattan Theatre Club awarded him a Sloan Playwriting Commission to develop a new script set in a coastal English town afflicted by climate change. He is a MacDowell Fellow and a graduate of the clown school L'ecole Philippe Gaulier. Grabiner is currently developing his film debut with 2AM/BBC Films.
Lynn Nottage is a two time Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and a screenwriter. Her plays, including Ruined, Sweat, Intimate Apparel and Clyde’s, have been produced widely in the United States and throughout the world. She is an artist-in-residence at the Park Avenue Armory and the co-founder of the production company, Market Road Films.